I'm Nobody, Who Are You?
by MagicSwede1965
Summary: Roarke grants Christian's wedding-anniversary fantasy, dealing the prince several shocks along the way. Follows 'Safe at Home'.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** _Here's the new story I hinted at in the last one. It's going so well that I may be able to post a new chapter per day. Which I'm sure would suit my faithful readers… [grin!] Enjoy, and the next installment will go up tomorrow. I look forward to your comments!

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§ § § -- January 16, 2006

There'd been the usual party for Christian and Leslie's wedding anniversary that their friends had insisted on throwing; it had been a bit more raucous this year than usual because for one thing, it was their fifth anniversary, and for another, they had been unable to be together the previous year. Their friends seemed to be trying to make up for this latter, even though Leslie had said there was no reason to bother. But she and Christian put up with it anyway and did their utmost to be good sports about it.

But she deliberately held one item back; and when their guests, including Roarke, had returned home and the triplets and Ingrid were all in bed for the night, she slid into bed beside him and smiled at him, seeing the expectant gleam in his eyes. "So, what did you think of the whole thing?" she asked.

"You know what I think of parties in general," he reminded her with an arched brow. "Stop trying to distract me. It's my intention to make love to you tonight, and by fate, I'm not going to let you talk me out of it."

Leslie laughed. "I'm not trying to, silly. It's just that I have one more present for you that I didn't want to give you in front of everybody else."

Christian's features shifted into a comical, suggestive leer. "Is that so? Are you going to perform a striptease for me, and that's why you couldn't do it?"

"Boy, the testosterone's raging tonight, isn't it? No, my love, it has nothing to do with lovemaking, so try switching off the libido for a few minutes at least and let me tell you what it is." She waited till he sighed and assumed an expectant look, and then grinned. "I'm giving you a fantasy."

This time his distraction was genuine and he looked startled and confused, peering at her with only partial comprehension. "What's this? Has Mr. Roarke endowed you with the power to grant fantasies all on your own?"

"No, that's not what I mean. Sheesh, you're usually less dense than this—you must've been drinking too much of Anton's beer." Christian's Fantasy Island employees, as well as the families of those who had them, had also been at the party, and Anton Lauterhoff had presented Christian with a case of a certain German beer that Christian had grown to like many years before when he'd visited Germany with one of his Sundborg employees. "See if you can focus that sodden mind of yours and let me explain."

"I didn't drink that much of it," Christian protested, rolling his eyes. "If I had, I'd be half asleep by now, and I wanted to be awake and alert specifically to make love to you this night. Well, then, hurry up and tell me what this is all about so I can get started."

Lightly she swatted his shoulder. "One-track mind. Okay, here's the thing. When we got back from Boston the other day, I talked all this over with Father, and he agreed. Now, you don't have to do it right away. But when you're ready for your fantasy—whatever it might be—all you have to do is come to Father and me and let us know, and we'll set it up for the next weekend. How's that sound?"

Christian stared at her in puzzlement for a minute or two. "I don't know if I actually have a fantasy…well, at least not one Mr. Roarke would consent to grant." He must have seen some subtle change in her expression, for he shrugged and smiled. "Oh, don't mistake me, my Rose, I'm grateful, if surprised. I just can't think of anything I really want."

"That's why you should save it till you really need it. I'm sure one of these days, something will come up and you'll be chomping at the bit to get away from it all for a while. So when that day comes, just come and see us, and we'll take care of it for you."

"Well enough," Christian agreed and smiled, leaning over to kiss her. "It's very unexpected, and I'm sure I'll be grateful later, when I don't have something else much more urgent on my mind. Now come here and let me kiss you properly so we can do what I've been waiting all day to do."

Leslie laughed softly. "Lech," she teased in a near-whisper.

"_Your_ lech," he replied with a little smile and kissed her too deeply for her to respond. For another hour or so they forgot all else, melting into each other and enjoying themselves and their time together, so much rarer since they'd become parents.

Towards one in the morning, as they were sinking toward slumber in each other's embrace, Christian mumbled, "I thank you for the gift, my darling, but right now I don't see how I'll ever use it. I already have my greatest fantasy right here with you."

Sleepily she kissed his chest. "You're beautiful to say that, my love, but someday you'll use it. I guarantee that." She heard his drowsy grunt and smiled to herself.

§ § § -- February 28, 2006

For the past month or so the news had been filled with the trial in Sundborg, Lilla Jordsö, of Ingela Vikslund on the charges of kidnapping, incarcerating and attempting to murder Christian's brother-in-law, Esbjörn Lagnebring. She had been found guilty on all counts and sentenced to twenty years in prison; but even though this had happened a week before, the buzz showed no signs of abating. That was merely because it was no longer the trial itself that was the center of attention: it was the fact that Christian's late brother and father had both played small roles in the whole operation. Arnulf I, in an attempt to provide his people with jobs during a national recession, had endorsed Ingela's father's plans to drill within easy sight of the country's northern shores; and Arnulf II, who had been very much his father's son in just about every possible respect, had apparently managed somehow to be in a position to deflect the would-be assassin's shot so that Esbjörn had been only wounded instead of killed—which meant that Arnulf had known exactly what was going to happen. The fact that he had prevented a serious wounding from becoming the murder the world had thought it was mattered little in light of the fact that the two kings had not only known what was going on, but allowed it to happen—and worse, refused to come clean about their roles even after Vikslund Oil backed off from its plans and Arnulf I signed into law a bill to prevent any oil company from drilling so close to the coastline. That had meant that Anna-Laura had spent more than two decades believing she was a widow, and her two children had grown up without their father.

With the trial over now, this had become the center of attention, and too many of Christian's customers at Enstad Computer Services found some reason, however foolish, to bring it up in his presence. Christian had had a very trying week, and by the time he came to lunch that day, he was in a mood the likes of which Leslie hadn't seen in him for a very long time, if ever. "Uh-oh," she murmured.

Christian speared her with a look and nodded. "Yes, you guessed it, I'm in what some writers might call a 'fine, tearing mood'," he confirmed, his voice clipped and shaking slightly with his effort to control his rage. "I'm frankly sick of it. If one more person asks me about Father or Arnulf, I shouldn't be held responsible for what I might do to him."

"They know it wasn't your fault, Christian," Roarke said, serene as ever.

"Not to all appearances. Fate take us, Mr. Roarke, if you could have spent the morning in the office with me, you might not say such a thing. Some have intimated that the entire family was putting on an act at Esbjörn's fake burial. Only two of us knew the truth, and I wasn't one of them. But how do you tell that to anyone? They merely assume I'm trying to cover my own…behind." He shot Roarke a faintly sheepish glance. "At any rate, I have to tell you, I'm incredibly sick of being me. Now more than ever, I wish fate had seen fit to have me born to an obscure working-class family far away from anything having to do with royalty!"

Leslie and Roarke looked at each other, and Leslie cleared her throat. "Hmm…that 'common bricklayer' yearning again, huh, my love?"

"Yes," Christian spat out. "I can't tell you how much I've wished I…" He fell silent suddenly and stilled, clearly visited with a realization. Leslie began to grin and glanced at Roarke, who winked knowingly.

"I presume you'd like to use that wedding-anniversary gift Leslie arranged for you," said Roarke, his voice slightly quizzical, courteous, inviting…and just perceptibly amused.

Christian, in his turmoil, seemed to miss this last tone. "Yes indeed, Mr. Roarke, and I thank you for bringing it up. The sooner the better, if you ask me. Can you do it this weekend? If you can, I'll do my best to stick it out with these crazy questions for the rest of the week. I'll have something to look forward to."

Leslie grinned, and Roarke chuckled a little. "Indeed. Very well, then, you arrange to take the next weekend off, and leave the rest to us."

After lunch Christian returned to work almost happy; at least, he was whistling a bit as he departed the porch. Leslie watched him go while Mariki cleared the table, and finally looked at Roarke. "Do we really have to do it the way you said we would?"

Roarke looked at her with gentle remonstration. "My dear Leslie, you should realize that in light of all your husband's complaints, it's the only way to get the message across to him. It may seem harsh to you, but unless you can think of some other method that stands a proper chance of having the effect you want, it's what we must do."

She sighed. "Okay, okay. But I can't help wondering what he'll be like when he gets back…and if he'll ever speak to either one of us again."

Roarke laughed. "You worry far too much, my child. Try to trust in me, just for once."

"I always trust in you—with our regular guests. But this is Christian we're talking about. I can't help getting butterflies in my gut just thinking about it."

"If you were planning to be so apprehensive about the fantasy, then tell me, why did you arrange to give it to him?"

She cleared her throat at the pointed tone in Roarke's voice, shifting her weight and suddenly busying herself untying bibs from around toddlers' necks. "I…well, I didn't think he would ask for _that_ fantasy."

Roarke was silent for long enough that she looked up finally and caught him watching her with a skeptical, expectant look on his handsome features. "Oh?" was all he said when they made eye contact.

"Okay, maybe I did." But he still eyed her, and she threw her hands in the air. "I give up. There you go again, reading my mind. When are you ever going to teach me to do more than just appear and disappear out of the study, anyway?"

Roarke laughed again and arose. "I'm afraid I couldn't teach you the trick of mind-reading even if I had it," he said, disregarding her skeptical eye-roll. "You forget, my child, it's my business to know what's happening on my island, insofar as I am able to keep up with this growing population and the ever-shifting cadre of guests. It seems only natural that your conversation with Myeko Okada at Prince Miroslav's wedding party last fall was the catalyst for your request."

Leslie stilled in the act of lifting Tobias out of his high chair and stared at him. "Did I tell you about that? I don't remember doing that."

"Didn't you?" Roarke asked, looking so genuinely surprised that she snorted to herself and resumed releasing triplets from their confinement. She missed Roarke's private little smile, and it was probably just as well that she did…


	2. Chapter 2

§ § § -- March 4, 2006

Christian was really looking forward to this weekend. For the first time in his life, Roarke had promised, he would know true anonymity; he would be able to experience what it was like not to be recognized everywhere he went, bowed to, called "Your Highness", chased after by reporters or photographers or autograph seekers…he would be a complete nobody. Anticipation sang through his arteries as he let himself into the study, where his wife and father-in-law were waiting for him.

"Hello, Christian," Roarke greeted him. "Please sit down."

"Thank you," Christian replied, taking the empty chair in front of Roarke's desk. Leslie was sitting in the other one, as she often did, and for the first time he could see that there was a strange, apprehensive expression on her face. "Are you all right, my Rose?"

"Oh, sure," said Leslie and smiled. He thought it took her some effort to clear her features, but she winked at him suddenly, and he grinned, feeling better. It would be a wonderful opportunity to spend a weekend with her, he thought.

"Good," he said. "So, then…where and when and how do I start my fantasy?"

Roarke looked thoughtfully at him. "Before you do begin, I must ask you if you're truly aware of what you're requesting of me," he said. Christian stared at him, and he lifted a hand. "I realize you believe that's a ridiculous question, but please, hear me out. I know full well how often you've complained about your notoriety in the past. You've been famous since the day you were born, and even before then; you've never been able to step out of your home without being recognized and sometimes accosted by complete strangers who want some of your time and attention. You worry at times about stalkers and kidnappers and assassins. You've had more than your fill of reporters looking for stories and photographers trying to capture your image."

"Exactly so," Christian said and sat up in earnest. "Mr. Roarke, please—you don't seem to understand. _Every day of my life,_ this has happened to me. I honestly and truly don't know what it's like to be no one at all, just another man on the street. What is it like to get lost in a crowd? How does it feel to be able to go anywhere, anytime, in complete peace and privacy? I want that experience, Mr. Roarke. I want the opportunity to understand what it would be like to be just another ordinary human being. So many people come to you for the experience of being famous. Surely you must find it something of a novelty to have a famous person come to you for the experience of being anonymous—especially someone like me, who has never in his entire existence been so."

Roarke smiled. "Yes, royalty seems to have a brand of fame unique to the institution," he agreed, "and I can see you're very dissatisfied indeed with it. But you should understand one thing, Christian. The life of the common man is often fraught with its own peril. And you'll find none of the advantages that you, as a prince, were taught from infancy to expect as a matter of course. Some of the things you will discover you must do without may shock you." He smiled knowingly at Christian's faint frown. "You are not the first who has asked this of me. I've entertained at least a few royals who have asked for the same thing you have, including one headstrong young prince with whom I was acquainted from his childhood—you may have heard of him; he is now the ruler of Anatolia."

"King Peter, yes. Leslie mentioned once that he had been here asking for a fantasy like mine," said Christian a little impatiently. "I have no doubt he benefited highly from that experience. You know full well what my life is like. You have a unique perspective on it, being my father-in-law as you are. You've seen firsthand some of the impact it's had, not only on me but on Leslie as well, and our children. You can hardly sit there and wonder why I want to do this; I wouldn't believe you for a moment."

Roarke laughed. "Oh, I can assure you this has nothing whatsoever to do with an inability on my part to understand why you want this fantasy. I know you better than you seem to think." Christian smiled sheepishly, and Roarke's expression warmed. "I merely want to be certain that you've taken the time to think this through, that you fully comprehend what you'll be facing. And since you have in fact been famous all your life and have craved anonymity all that time—and have experienced bare glimpses of it since you came to this island—the prospect looks all the more inviting to you. I know how eager you are to begin; but I am concerned that you understand precisely what you're letting yourself in for."

"Oh?" Christian prompted, a bit reluctantly but with resignation, seeing that Roarke would have his say no matter how much he demanded to be allowed to start.

"For example, you are accustomed to a certain amount of respect—the sort that royalty automatically commands simply by being royalty. Are you not?"

"Of course, but that's all part of the identity I want to temporarily shed," said Christian, perplexed.

"Ah, yes—but your expectation of that respect has spilled over into other aspects of your life as well. You may not be conscious of it, but you expect the same respect from your employees as you do from your subjects. Perhaps not to the point of bowing and acknowledging your title, but simply because you're 'the boss'. That's an outgrowth of the respect your position in life already afforded you. When you become the anonymous commoner you so dearly wish to be, you'll lose not just the respect that comes with being royalty, but that other respect as well. Do you see my point?"

Christian shrugged his shoulders. "As long as I'm given the chance to prove myself, I have no problem with that."

Leslie cleared her throat. "You say that now, my love, but I know you and your temper. You're just royal enough to be really offended when people don't show you the respect you're so used to."

"Ach, you too? Suppose you stop making suggestions and giving advice, and save it for when we've begun my fantasy?"

Leslie settled back in her chair and folded her arms over her chest, giving him a reproving look. _"We?_ Just where did you get the idea that I was going to be your guide? Oh no, Christian Enstad, that'd be cheating. If you want the full experience of being a nobody, then you'll sink or swim on your own. That's what happens to most of us nobodies in real life, so you shouldn't expect to get an exemption and just get your toes wet at your leisure and with your swimming coach and life ring handy. When you go in, dear heart, you go solo."

Roarke laughed at Christian's astonished reaction. "Very well put, Leslie, if a trifle harsh. But she's correct, Christian. Most people must find their own way in this world; and since you wish the full experience of being a common man, you too must do the same."

"Fine, fine," Christian said through a sigh that indicated his patience had finally been exhausted. "Surely even you must realize, Mr. Roarke, that you can give eager fantasizers only so much advice and so many warnings before you have to allow them to go in and learn those lessons on their own. Now, believe me, I'll keep in mind what you've told me, but for fate's sake, stop trying to cushion the fall you're obviously expecting me to take, and let me just take it."

Roarke and Leslie looked at each other, significantly, Christian thought; then Roarke nodded. "Very well, Christian. It will be as you request—and as Leslie informed you. In her words, 'sink or swim', at your peril."

"Then let it be that way," Christian retorted insistently, standing up to reinforce his point. "Just let me do it already."

Leslie shrugged. "We might as well send him on his way, Father. He's even willing to forgo my guidance just so he can have his weekend of paradise."

"It'll be a little less paradise without you along," Christian told her with a grin, "but you yourself seemed quite willing to simply throw me into your metaphorical ocean with no lifeboat. Now for fate's sake, please, stop delaying!"

Roarke stood up too, and Leslie followed suit. "In that case, come with us, Christian, and we'll take you to the place where your fantasy is to begin."

Christian shouldered a duffel bag Leslie had advised him to prepare and followed her and Roarke out to a car that sat in the lane waiting for them. He felt like one of the guests as she settled in front with Roarke behind the wheel; he sat behind Leslie, studying the back of her head over the top of the seat as if memorizing her. For the first time he began to wonder about the secondary aspects of his fantasy. "Where exactly are you taking me, then?" he inquired. "Will I be here on the island, or—?"

"Yes," Roarke assured him, "you won't have to leave here or worry about being stranded in a remote jungle village."

Leslie twisted in her seat to grin at him. "I managed to convince Father that that might be too big a culture shock," she said, and he laughed. "So you won't have to finesse your way out of imprisonment among primitive natives, or hack a path through the Amazon rain forest, or anything like that. You asked to just be a commoner, so that's what you'll be getting. And don't worry, the kids and I will be fine. We'll miss you, but you'll be back tomorrow evening, so it won't be so bad."

"I'm not going back in time, am I?" Christian asked apprehensively. By now he'd been involved in enough time-travel fantasies that he preferred to remain in the present day for the time being.

"No, there's no time travel involved either," said Roarke, sounding amused, like a parent reassuring a child about summer sleepaway camp. "Do you have any other worries before we let you off?"

Leslie giggled at that, and Christian grinned, feeling a little sheepish. "It's only that I've been exposed to some startling surprises, on those occasions when I've played parts in fantasies for you. I just wanted to be prepared."

"Ah, I see," said Roarke, grinning. "No, Leslie suggested that it would be enough of a, shall we say, workout for you during your fantasy without adding any of those unexpected other elements. It's really quite simple and straightforward. You wish to be a commoner, an anonymous human being, for a weekend, and that is precisely what we're giving you."

Christian sighed with relief and shook his head a little at their chuckles. "Laugh if you will, but I've been here long enough to know what can happen and to be wary of it. I do appreciate the reassurances, anyway. Oh, so soon?" Roarke was pulling off the Ring Road near the Japanese teahouse; even as he stopped the car, Christian noticed an odd shimmering in the air at the apex of the steep red wooden bridge that crossed the nearby pond.

"Yes, this is where you will begin your fantasy," Roarke said. "All you have to do is cross the bridge, and you'll be on your way."

"Perfect," said Christian and smiled, shaking his hand. "Thank you very much, Mr. Roarke. This means a lot to me." He turned to Leslie, who seemed strangely nervous again, and tilted his head at her. "Are you sure you're all right, my Rose?"

She nodded firmly. "I'm fine, my love. Just want to be sure you will be, too."

"I will," Christian promised firmly. "Enjoy your weekend, and I'll see you tomorrow evening. Perhaps even before then." He stepped forward, gently grasped her chin between his thumb and two forefingers, and kissed her. "I love you, my Leslie Rose. Well, then, see you both soon." He winked at Leslie, nodded at Roarke with a last appreciative grin, and stepped onto the bridge. So eager was he to get started that he didn't hesitate in the slightest, even when he found that moving through the odd shimmering air in the middle of the bridge felt like passing the open door of a very large oven. Nothing seemed to have changed, though when he stepped onto solid ground on the other side and turned around, he saw that he was alone. Roarke, Leslie and the car were gone, as if they'd never been there.

"Well," he murmured, indulging himself and using his native _jordiska_, "I suppose I should have expected that. All right, then." He gathered his bearings, adjusted the duffel on his shoulder and began to walk toward the Ring Road, his destination Amberville. After all, he had to test this fantasy out, didn't he?—and the only way he could find out if Roarke had delivered what he'd promised was to move among people and see how they reacted to him. With a confident little smile, he began to stride briskly up the road.

When he came within sight of the first buildings, Christian stopped and drew in a breath, feeling like a kid about to raid the tree on Christmas morning. _Go on, do it,_ he urged himself. _Why put it off? _ He grinned broadly, then moved forward, his attention on the people who came into view as he entered the town square. Some glanced at him, but to his delight, there was no recognition at all on their faces. They barely gave him a second's worth of their attention on their way to somewhere else. Not one stopped him to demand an autograph, or ask to have their picture taken with him, or (and this was the best part, he realized with glee) ask intrusive questions about his dead father and brother.

Beside himself with delight, he headed for the café on the corner of the row of shops where he had his own office, feeling peckish and deciding to buy a paper and have a little something to eat. It was a luxury he remembered having had at Ebba's Café in Sundborg, though that had been only because the Dannegård family had made it clear that he was to be left strictly alone. Here, people just left him alone because, wonder of wonders, he was a nobody! He knew he probably had the biggest, silliest grin on earth on his face right now, but he didn't care. The idea of having no one know his name was heady enough to keep him on a manic high.

He dug into the pocket of the nondescript jeans he had worn specifically for this fantasy and found some loose change and bills therein. He bought a copy of the _Fantasy Island Chronicle_ out of a machine, then wandered into the café and treated himself to an ordinary cup of coffee and an English muffin before settling down at the counter and opening the newspaper. For a minute he wasn't sure the fantasy was going quite as he wanted it to, for the news was still the same—including all the reports about his father and brother and what they had done to his brother-in-law. But as he scanned the story, he discovered that his name wasn't mentioned in it anywhere. Even when the story recapped Esbjörn and Anna-Laura's quiet wedding, at which he and Leslie had been witnesses, he found that neither his name nor hers was in the list of those who had been at the wedding.

"_Herregud,"_ he muttered to himself, slightly taken aback. Did that mean that his existence as Prince Christian of Lilla Jordsö had been erased entirely? He was surprised and annoyed to find that this made him uneasy. _Get a grip on yourself, for fate's sake. If you really wanted to be a nobody, you should have expected not to see your name in the paper! _ He folded the pages closed and sipped at his coffee, still faintly rattled, but slowly calming down as he registered the fact that no one was bothering him at all, even though he sat in plain view of everybody in the café. Soon the smile was back on his face.

Eventually he finished his food, arose and departed the café, then wandered to the middle of the square, not altogether sure what he should do next. A wild idea occurred to him then. _Maybe I should try applying for employment in my own establishment,_ he thought and snickered to himself. He knew computers, after all. He turned to do so, and was shocked to find that the storefront where he'd had an office for the past nearly-six years was occupied by a candy shop! FANTASY CANDIES, the place was called. Christian gaped at it, so astounded by this new evidence of his own change of identity that he couldn't seem to move. It was all he could do to assimilate it. Why hadn't Roarke or Leslie warned him they were doing this?

He stiffened abruptly and clutched the strap of his bag so hard his knuckles went bloodless. _Fate have mercy…Leslie! _ He had to see her. He started along the back path through the jungle, the one she had taught him about years ago that led to the back of the main house, and before he knew it was running full-tilt, desperate to get a few answers and a little equilibrium. _I promise I won't scold her,_ he thought frantically. _All I want is for her to let me know what I should expect out of this._ He ignored the persistent little thought that was knocking on his mind, trying to gain admittance. He needed something familiar just now, something to get him back in balance so he could enjoy the rest of his weekend.

He burst out of the trees and paused at the edge of the flagstone terrace, taking just enough time to catch his breath a bit before crossing the patio and entering the open French shutters. He stopped short when he saw Leslie in the foyer talking to some guest, and hovered there at the back of Roarke's study, waiting for her to finish so he could have a few words with her. He took in the welcome sight of his wife, grasping at her presence as an anchor in his suddenly overturned world.

"Okay," Leslie said then, "we'll take care of it, Mr. Andrews. Has your fantasy gotten off to a good start otherwise?"

"Absolutely," said the heavyset middle-aged man with a broad gummy grin. "I just wanted to remind Mr. Roarke that I'm still allergic to cats and he's really gotta get that little beast outta my bungalow."

"Sure," said Leslie. "I'll pass the message along." She watched him depart, mumbled aloud, "I still think it's a weird time of year for a Halloween fantasy," and stepped into the study before she noticed Christian standing there.

He chuckled at her comment. "I have to agree with that. Well, my Rose, you and Mr. Roarke certainly delivered on your promise. Maybe more than I dreamed. I only wish you'd give me a few pointers so I know precisely what I'm facing here."

"Hm?" she said, blinking, her face blank. "I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean."

Christian felt his smile fade. "My fantasy," he began. "It seems to be quite thorough."

Leslie approached him slowly, studying him. "Maybe we'd better start over," she said, her voice carefully polite, but wary nonetheless. "Were you a scheduled guest here this weekend?"

"Of course I was," he exclaimed, staring at her. _"I ödets namn, _Leslie, is your memory that short? Please, my darling, help me out here."

A hot-and-cold sensation swiftly swept his body when she froze at the words "my darling" and took a small step back, putting distance between them. "I'm very sorry," she said, staring at him with no recognition whatsoever in her eyes. "But…who are you?"

Christian reeled, staggered back a step or two, almost blacked out. _His own wife didn't know him!_ He stared wildly around the study, noting almost detachedly that everything was exactly the same as he'd seen it barely an hour ago when he'd followed her and Roarke out to the car; she was dressed the same, looked the same, everything. His eyes strayed to her left hand, and he was stunned anew when he saw that her ring finger was bare.

"Sir…my God, are you all right? Here, come and sit down," Leslie exclaimed, her concern overcoming her caution. He was so swamped by the realization that he was, truly, the nobody he'd always wanted to be that he hardly noticed her grasping his arm and leading him to a chair. "I'll get my father—just a moment."

"No," Christian gasped, horrified. It was bad enough that Leslie didn't know him; if Roarke should evince the same reaction, he wasn't sure what would happen to him. "No, please…just a glass of water, that's all."

"I'll be right back," Leslie assured him and jumped the steps into the foyer in one bound, disappearing toward the kitchen. Christian dropped his duffel on the floor and held his spinning head in his hands, trying to make some sense out of this. The idea that his beloved wife wouldn't know who he was had never occurred to him. Well…yes, actually, it had tried to, but he hadn't wanted to consider the possibility.

"Fate in her mercy," he whispered, breathing hard. "I really _am_ a nobody."


	3. Chapter 3

§ § § -- March 4, 2006

He heard footsteps, and a few seconds later Leslie handed him a glass. "Here," she said and sat in the other chair. With shaking hands Christian drank the entire glassful of water without stopping even to breathe; he felt a few drops spill onto his shirt but ignored them, trying to find some normalcy to grasp. When he had finished, he lowered the glass and stared fixedly at it, thinking how familiar it, too, looked from all the meals at which he'd drunk from it and its identical fellows. Everything was the same, yet nothing was. He had somehow landed in a world where he was a nonentity.

"Are you sure you're going to be all right?" Leslie asked. Concern filled her voice, but it was professional concern; there was no alarm. She was merely worried about the well-being of a guest, not frightened for her husband. Christian's heart beat madly within his chest, as if it were a captive bird trying to escape.

He chanced a glance at her. "I don't know," he murmured helplessly. "I…I'm sorry to have intruded on you like this…I really thought…"

When he hesitated, afraid of the reaction his tumbling thoughts would receive if he gave them voice, Leslie leaned forward a bit and said gently, "Well, first things first. What's your name? Where are you from?"

"I'm from Lilla Jordsö," he said, and couldn't help studying her closely when he added, with precise clarity, "My name is Christian Enstad."

She only nodded and extended a hand, a welcoming but impersonal smile on her face. "Welcome to Fantasy Island, Mr. Enstad." The formality gave him another vicious jolt, but he managed to at least partially contain himself and took her hand to shake it. "I'm Leslie Hamilton—I'm Mr. Roarke's assistant and his adopted daughter."

"I know," said Christian before he could stop himself, but she just grinned.

"Guess our fame precedes us. I always forget about those damn brochures. Well, anyway…so you say you're here for a fantasy?"

Christian hesitated before he spoke, unsure he should stick with that story. "I…uh, thought so, but perhaps there was a mistake." Carefully he picked his words, groping for something that would sound plausible to her. "In fact…I just arrived this morning…on the ferry, from Coral Island. I…need a job, if you happen to have anything open."

She sat back in her chair and considered his words, while he stared hungrily at her, yearning for some sign of recognition in her. After a moment or two she looked up, and he saw her stiffen again; he cleared his throat and looked quickly away, realizing he was going to have to deal with this altered reality whether he wanted to or not. Painfully he said, "I apologize for my…familiarity a few minutes ago. It was out of place, I'm afraid. It's only that you…look like someone I…someone I'm very fond of."

Leslie's features softened and she smiled with sympathy. "Oh, I see. Well, that's all right, no apology necessary. Is your wife with you?"

Christian had honestly forgotten about his wedding ring, and he stared stupidly at his finger for a minute or two before coughing self-consciously. "Oh, I don't…I mean—" He had no wish to create some hole-filled backstory for the ring, and instead stripped it off and dropped it into the pocket of his denim shirt. "That was…another life." _And how! _he thought.

"Oh," she murmured, looking as if she wanted to ask questions. He was grateful when she didn't, instead turning the conversation back to business. "Well, as far as a job is concerned, we don't have anything open here in the main house. That is, unless you don't mind a temporary job. We're a little short of workers for the weekly luau, and if you're interested, we could use your help."

About to accept, he caught himself, noticing the computer behind her, the one he himself had set up there. _Or did I?_ Determinedly he banished that train of thought and drew in a breath, then ventured experimentally, "As a matter of fact, I'm very knowledgeable about computers. If yours, or anyone else's around here, needs service, I can provide it."

She smiled. "Thank you for the offer, but there's a computer shop on Coral Island that takes care of all that for us. You know, if you want to work with computers, you might try applying there."

For some reason the thought left him cold. "No…I appreciate your suggestion, though. Well, as to the luau job, I'll take it."

"Okay." Leslie reached halfway across the desk for a scratch pad, and Christian watched her as a starving wolf watches an unsuspecting rabbit, following her movements as she made some notations on the top sheet. "Here's how to find the luau clearing. I'll tell Chef Miyamoto you'll be there, and you should report to work at three o'clock this afternoon. They'll keep you busy, but you'll be paid well for your efforts."

"Thank you," Christian murmured, watching her tear the sheet off the pad and taking it when she offered it to him. Dear fate, but he wanted to touch her… The impulse grew too strong for him to resist and he blurted out, "Are you married?"

She blinked rapidly a few times and stared at him in surprise. His heart sank at the new caution in her voice when she replied, "No, I'm not."

"At all?" he said, then realized just what an idiotic response that had been. To his surprise, she chuckled softly.

"Oh, I was married once, a long time ago, but he passed away. I just never met another man I really felt I could connect with." The words seemed to brand Christian's soul, but she smiled and shrugged, as if the subject were of little importance. "I guess I'm just not cut out to be a wife."

"That can't be true," Christian said helplessly, staring at her again. He couldn't seem to control his own words. "Will…will you be at the luau tonight?"

"Mr. Enstad—" she began.

"Call me Christian, please," he broke in. Even he could hear the thread of neediness in his own voice, and couldn't blame her for the odd look she gave him.

But she capitulated. "Okay…Christian. I probably will, but I'll be working—and so will you." Her voice was firm, a no-nonsense, don't-mess-with-me tone that told him he'd better back down before he lost whatever little ground he'd gained with her. "As I said, you can report at three o'clock. Chef Miyamoto'll be on the lookout for you. Is there anything else you need, while you're here?"

He seized the line she'd thrown him. "I…don't think I have a place to stay," he said, for some absurd reason hoping, even half expecting, that she would offer the spare room upstairs. Anything, he thought, to stay near her… He dug into his pocket and got still another shock when he saw that he held a grand total of thirty-four dollars in his hand.

Leslie noticed it too and peered at him. "It sounds," she said delicately, "like you've had a rough time of it lately, Mr. Enstad."

_Oh, you don't know the half of it,_ he thought, but instead mustered up a half-shrug and a sheepish smile. "Quite so, I think. I'm sorry for imposing like this."

"It's no imposition. We still have one empty bungalow. Why don't you stay there." She reached across the desk again and this time extracted a key from the gold box there, handing it to him and briefly brushing his fingers with hers in the process. Christian's heart lurched, but the minimal contact clearly had no effect on her at all. "Do you need someone to show you the way there?"

"If you could…" he began, feeling like a child asking one too many favors.

Leslie smiled. "I think I can spare that much time. Just follow me." He got up in unison with her and trailed her out of the house, a devoted puppy attached to an indifferent mistress, his head still awhirl and his stomach doing back flips. Nothing here was normal, nothing at all. He needed a chance to come to grips, even if only a little bit.

‡ ‡ ‡

He dropped his duffel on the bed in the North Shore Bungalow where Leslie had left him, trying not to cast glances back at the door or search for her retreating form through the front window, and sat down on the end of the bed with a heavy thump that made him bounce once or twice. Releasing a long sigh, he pondered in depth for the first time just why things were going the way they were. _Anonymous, yes; nonexistent, no! This has gone too far, _he thought, shaking his head hard a few times to dispel a shudder. _Sometimes I think Mr. Roarke is a sadist. And did Leslie go along with this willingly? Did she know beforehand what he was planning to do? Is that why she's pretending she's never seen me before today, and has no reaction to me—none at all?_

The thought gave rise to another question: would Kazuo know him either? He was supposed to go and work for his friend this evening. Would any of their other friends know him should he run into them? Christian arose and ventured into the bathroom off the bedroom, staring at himself in the mirror. He didn't look any different from usual; he still had the same glossy, straight, deep-chestnut-brown hair, the same hazel eyes, the same flawless nose his mother had bequeathed him, the same lips and smile (hesitant though this last might be at the moment). He was unquestionably still Christian Enstad; it was only that in this peculiar version of his life, no one knew who he was. Worse, it seemed no one cared.

He straightened the denim work clothing he had worn particularly for this weekend and left the bathroom, pocketing the bungalow key that lay on the coffee table before going back outside. Something else had occurred to him: would he find the house he and Leslie shared, standing opposite Grady and Maureen Harding's place as it had done for the last five years or so? He suspected not, but human nature demanded that he find out for himself, see it with his own two bewildered eyes. Until he knew for sure whether the house was still there and whether their friends would know him, he couldn't decide if Leslie was just pretending she'd never heard of him, or if this was some scary altered reality.

He remembered Taro Sensei talking about a shuttle bus that ran on a regular schedule around the island; he made his way out to the Ring Road and walked down it till he came to a sign designating a regular bus stop. A few native girls were waiting there, their arms full of leis perhaps left over from the guest-welcoming at the plane dock that morning, chattering among themselves like magpies. An African-American man waited there as well, standing a bit apart from the girls, his hands in his pants pockets and his suit jacket open so that his tie sometimes waved in the breeze. He nodded to Christian as the latter joined the group there, and Christian nodded back; but neither spoke, and there was no sign of recognition on the other man's part. Christian was surprised to find he was getting used to that.

In a little more than ten minutes the bus rumbled around a bend in the road, coming west from the hotel, and Christian filed aboard after the others, sidestepping his way to the last empty seat near the back. He would be here awhile; it would take more than an hour for the vehicle to get around the island to Christian's destination. The nearest stop to the Enclave was at its nearby marina and beach, so he planned to get off there and walk the rest of the way. It should help ease his restlessness.

He almost dozed off several times along the route; when he finally awoke fully and got a good look around him, it took him a couple of minutes to figure out where he was. He managed to pinpoint his location to somewhere on the western end of the Ring Road's southern leg. From then on he watched carefully till his stop came up, and he got off the bus alone while a gaggle of vacationers streamed aboard. He paused at the stop, watching the bus lumber away to the east and then vanish around a gentle curve in the road, before he began to walk. Only then did his apprehension catch up with him and start to burgeon.

It was a good mile up the access road and another two down the little dirt lane where he and Leslie had built their house soon after marrying. His periodical beach runs had given him enough stamina that, as long as he didn't push himself too hard, he would be just fine. The six-mile-total walk, there and back, would do him good, he thought. But it didn't do his brain much good, and he worried all the way there about what he'd find.

It unnerved him how everything was just the same as he had grown to know it during his years on this island. He caught sight of the strange A-frame/Tudor castle amalgamation where the stars of Leslie's favorite TV show, "King's Castle", lived; occasionally they caught glimpses of Damian Mullawney out front doing yard work, or Carson Howland Casey taking a little sun in his wheelchair, and would wave in neighborly fashion. It gave him a pang and he tried to stuff thoughts of Leslie back into a dusty corner of his mind.

He picked up the pace a bit on their own little dirt lane, and in about fifteen minutes he could see Grady and Maureen's house set back on their gently sloping front lawn…and nothing but a grassy meadow where his and Leslie's house should have been. Christian stopped short and gaped for a moment, reeling almost as badly as he'd done back at the main house a while ago, again struggling to grasp this new development. "I'm going to go crazy," he said aloud. "I'm sure of it."

For a moment he wavered there, not sure what he should do; then he heard a door shut and looked around. Maureen Harding had just emerged from the house and was heading for the car that sat in the driveway, with Brianna trailing her holding April's hand. He watched Maureen secure April in her rear car seat, watched her and Brianna get into the car themselves, and belatedly debated hiding or at least resuming his walk back down the lane before they saw him.

But he'd taken perhaps only a dozen steps before the car pulled up alongside. Brianna had rolled her window down, and Maureen leaned over. "Do you need a ride somewhere?" she asked.

Torn between taking the offer to spare himself the long walk back to the bus stop and avoiding the discomfort that he feared would arise, he hesitated again, then gave up and smiled at her. "I'd appreciate that, thank you," he said.

Brianna got out and joined her little sister in the back, and Christian took her vacated seat up front. Maureen smiled at him and sent the car forward. "What brings you all the way out here? We're pretty isolated, after all, and not too many people get this far back into the boonies."

"Ah, well…it's a perfect day, and I just decided to wander wherever the whim took me," Christian said, surprised to find that he sounded fairly normal when he said this.

"That's some pretty serious wandering," Maureen commented with a laugh. "You must be a visitor here. Us natives are probably too blasé to bother exploring the island to that extent. Where are you from?"

Christian had to swallow before he could reply. "Lilla Jordsö," he said.

"Wow," said Brianna from the back seat. "We never get anybody from all the way over there. That's really cool."

"It _is_ interesting," Maureen concurred, actually sounding interested. "I guess you must have been looking for a real change of pace, to find yourself on the opposite side of the planet from Europe like that."

"You could say that," murmured Christian faintly, beginning to wish he'd opted out of the ride after all. He barely managed to maintain his façade, making conversation with Maureen and Brianna as he might do with a stranger who came into his shop to wait for him to put the finishing touches on a computer repair, having to consciously remember not to call either of them by name. He couldn't talk much about himself, either, so the conversation felt a little stilted to him. It was a relief when Maureen dropped him off in front of the hotel at his request, wished him luck, and drove away.

Christian's frustration, anger, bewilderment and even a trace of fear had him so agitated by now that he took refuge in the familiar: he began to run, as he sometimes did on the beach. He pounded across the hotel grounds, found a jungle path that he knew would lead to the bungalows, and let his thoughts pulse through his head to the beat of his sneakers thudding onto the hard-packed earthen trail. He'd worked up a pretty good sweat when he got back to the bungalow, but his emotions hadn't been settled at all. If anything, they'd only been stirred up all the worse. He stripped his clothing off and climbed into the shower, wishing he could wash his cares away so easily.

He had just donned jeans and a T-shirt from the duffel when he sensed he wasn't alone, and looked around. Sure enough, there stood Roarke. Wary, Christian stared at him; but Roarke smiled and said warmly, "Hello, Christian, are you enjoying your fantasy?"

Relief enervated Christian and he collapsed into a seated position on the bed. "Thank fate, someone actually knows me around here!" Roarke's brows popped up, and Christian suddenly saw the irony in his remark.

Before he could react, though, Roarke asked, "Is it so bad?"

Christian stood up and glared at him, resentment boiling over all at once. "I'd like to know exactly what you had in mind when you agreed to grant me this fantasy. I feel as if I dropped in here from another world. A stranger in a strange land, a man without a country. What are you trying to do, Mr. Roarke, destroy my sanity?"

"I beg your pardon?" said Roarke, looking surprised.

Christian began to pace the floor. "Look, it's one thing for me to be just a common, ordinary man in the street. It's quite another when even those you know have no recognition of you at all! Damn it, Mr. Roarke, what's going on around here?"

"Your fantasy was to be completely anonymous, was it not? To achieve that goal, it was necessary for me to make certain…adjustments to reality. Otherwise, you would not have achieved your objective."

"I don't understand. Was it _necessary_ to erase my existence from the memories of everyone on this island?"

Roarke settled his stance and smiled slightly. "You insisted on being a nobody. In order to accomplish this, I had to alter everything. Any person, any part of this island that your life had touched in some way, had to be changed so that you could in fact be the common man you so dearly wished to be. And that meant no one knowing you at all. If you had been allowed to retain contact with those you know, you would never have gained the full experience you were searching for with this fantasy. You would be no more a common, ordinary man than I. You would still be Prince Christian, famous since birth, seeing his name in every magazine and newspaper on earth, bemoaning his notoriety—because your friends would still have known who you really are, and would have treated you accordingly."

"It wasn't necessary to include Leslie!" Christian shouted, his remembered horror at Leslie's blank reception finally overcoming him. "When I first began to get an idea that I wasn't really me any longer, I came to her looking for help—and all I got was a blank stare and a 'who are you?' For a moment or two I thought I would faint!"

"Oh…I am terribly sorry," said Roarke sympathetically.

"_Sorry," _Christian scoffed, rolling his eyes. "I'm nothing, don't you see? Nothing and no one. I don't even exist! My friends, my family, my wife—swept away as if they had never been. What the hell am I supposed to do?"

Roarke straightened himself and met Christian's glare with a hard look of his own. "Deal with it," he said flatly. "Deal with it as every other common person on the street deals with it, every day of their lives. Find your place in the world. Forge your own identity. Carve out a niche for yourself—as everyone else must do."

"But…I know no one now…I have no contacts, no friends…"

"Make new ones," said Roarke.

Christian checked himself before letting his temper have its way again, slowly coming to the understanding that Roarke had had good reasons for doing what he'd done after all. But he still felt lost without his wife. "All right, Mr. Roarke, all right…but what about Leslie? Why must I do without her? There's no memory whatsoever of me and what we have together. Not even some vestigial recollection that might trigger something between us in this…this alternate universe. You seem to have forgotten that even the common, ordinary man in the street begins with a set of parents at least, and often siblings. Some manner of family in any case. Perhaps I could have understood the loss of memory in our friends, but damn it, why Leslie too?"

"Every child leaves home sooner or later and attempts to find his or her own place. Some remain within walking distance of their parents; others move across the country, or even around the world." Roarke paused a moment. "This may be difficult for you to hear, Christian, but friends or none, you rely entirely too much and too heavily on Leslie. Even you yourself just now admitted to it. When you needed answers, you instantly turned to Leslie. You can't expect her to be your gateway to the entire world. You two may be married, but each of you still has a life of your own to lead."

"But…" Christian began, flabbergasted.

"There is no 'but' about it, Christian. Before you knew Leslie, you were your own man, very independent, determined to make your way in the world no matter what obstacles your father, and later your brother, tried to put in your way. Oh, you still have that spirit in you now; but you haven't expanded into new horizons. Just after you and Leslie were married, I recall your wonder at realizing that here, for the first time, you had friends—real friends, the sort of friends you hadn't had since your early school years. Yet you see far too little of those friends. Your first, and often your only, choice for companionship is Leslie. Carving that niche for yourself means not only leaving family, but making new friends, finding new companions. This is your chance to do that. Take it."

Slowly Christian sat down again, going over Roarke's words and wondering uneasily if they were really true, and whether Leslie thought the same way. At last he said, "I know better than to ask you to end this thing—you won't." Roarke grinned, and he relaxed a little bit. "But I'd like to go on the record as saying that I don't care much for your method."

"May I remind you of Leslie's words before you insisted we launch your fantasy. She advised you that you would either 'sink or swim'. The choice is yours."

Christian rested his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands, massaging his forehead a little with his palms. "What a hell of a way to teach me a lesson," he muttered. "Just wait till this ends and I—" As he spoke he looked up again—and Roarke was gone. He let his hands fall to his sides and cursed wearily in _jordiska_. "I suppose that's my signal to get started."

He arose to pick up the discarded clothing he had been wearing that morning and, when he lifted the shirt, his wedding ring fell out of the pocket. Slowly he picked it up off the bedspread, studied it, then frowned with determination and extracted his wallet from the back pocket of the jeans. He found a space among the few bills he had there for the ring, then shoved the wallet into the pocket of the jeans he now wore before stuffing the dirty items into the duffel. Whether he saw Leslie or not, he didn't want anyone asking him questions about that ring. The less impromptu backstory he had to come up with, the better. He decided to see about some lunch before reporting to the luau clearing.


	4. Chapter 4

§ § § -- March 4, 2006

About five minutes till three, Christian joined a couple of other people who were standing on the edge of the clearing, uncertainly watching the natives whose regular job this was as they swiftly set up buffets and low tables for guests to eat at. Off to one side, the plane-dock band had started rehearsing, and discordant ukulele notes twinkled through the air, occasionally punctuated by a pass on a slide guitar and bursts of laughter, and accented with a lot of chatter.

He was quite surprised to see that neither of his companions was a native; one was a young blonde woman, a little overweight and clad in sweats with the sleeves and pant legs rolled up, apparently college age, while the other was the African-American man he had seen at the bus stop that morning. They both smiled a greeting at Christian, and he smiled back with some relief and joined them, glad to know he wasn't the only one unsure of his role in this well-oiled operation. "Hello," he greeted them.

"Hi," they responded, and the man added, "Are you one of the new workers?"

Christian nodded. "Just for this evening," he said.

"Us too," said the man and offered a hand. "Darius Langford."

"Christian Enstad," Christian replied, shaking hands and smiling. Darius Langford seemed a very friendly sort, and he warmed to the man immediately. "You're not from this island, are you?"

Darius laughed. "No, wish I could say I was, but I'm originally from western New York, USA. How about you?"

"Lilla Jordsö," Christian said, making Darius and the woman look at each other in surprise. He smiled a little; everyone seemed to be impressed by his origins somehow, whereas in his own life no one seemed to notice anymore. _That's my influence,_ he realized, and missed his real life all of a sudden with a strength that startled him.

"Boy, you must've really been wandering," remarked the young woman and in turn held out her hand to him. "I'm Nicole Dalton, from Channel-Port aux Basques in Newfoundland, Canada."

Christian laughed as he shook hands with her. "You've done some wandering yourself!" he remarked.

"Yup," Nicole agreed cheerfully. "What brings you guys out here? I'm taking sort of a break before my last year of college—trying to quiet down my traveling foot before I have to stay in one place again for a while. I just pick up odd jobs wherever I go to get me to my next destination."

"Gutsy," commented Darius. "Me, I just got discharged from the Air Force. My hitch was up and I decided to get out. My last station was Coral Island, and they offered to fly me back to New York, but I thought I'd take my chances on Fantasy Island, just in case something was actually open here. I've been job-hunting all day." He shook his head, shoving his hands into the pockets of the jeans he currently wore. "I don't think I could go back to those Lake Erie snows anymore. I grew up around Buffalo, New York, and you talk about snow…one of the worst places in the country for the stuff."

"I'm sure I can imagine what you mean," Christian agreed. "We have plenty of snow in Lilla Jordsö as well."

"We get our share in Newfoundland," Nicole added. "So I guess we're all snow bunnies looking for a break. What'd you do in Lilla Jordsö, Christian?"

Unaccustomed to being addressed so casually by someone he'd just met, Christian had to choke back a pointed reminder to be referred to as "Your Highness" or at least "Mr. Enstad" before he said anything. "I worked with computers."

Darius and Nicole nodded. "Laid off, huh?" Nicole guessed, and Christian let her hold the assumption. It was easier than trying to make up something. "Sorry to hear it. But if you had enough capital and you could talk Mr. Roarke into it, maybe you could go into business right here. They're not as behind the times as those brochures pretend they are."

"Travel brochures lie to a certain extent," Darius said. "You get all the pictures of rustic natives living like they did in the olden days, but you come here and you've got all the amenities—Jacuzzis and free Internet access and high-def TV. This place isn't the least bit primitive. Darn good thing too—used to come over here a lot to send postcards to the family and make them think I was taking regular vacations here. Never did get more than a three-day pass, and that was enough to make me want to stay here permanently."

Christian chuckled. "It's certainly a beautiful place, but I understand it's quite difficult to take up residence here. Apparently you either need to marry an islander, or you have to be a member of some endangered species."

"Geez, you mean I have to be a passenger pigeon to come here?" Nicole complained.

"He said 'endangered', not 'extinct',' Darius teased her, grinning. "Pay attention there, college girl. Well, what the heck, I'll try my luck anyway."

Just then they were approached by Kazuo Miyamoto, who carried lengths of colorful cloth draped over one arm. "Are you the temp workers for the evening?" The threesome nodded and gave him their names; Christian restrained a gentle sigh when Kazuo evinced no recognition whatsoever upon hearing his. "Okay, good. You'll all be serving tonight—taking trays of fruit or hors d'oeuvres around to the guests here. You'll have to load up the trays yourselves and make the rounds, and no sampling, no matter how hungry you get. We serve supper at the hotel so you can resist temptation." He grinned, and suddenly he was the Kazuo Christian called friend; he, Darius and Nicole chuckled. "Oh, and by the way, you'll have to wear these. You can change after supper at the hotel." He plucked lengths of cloth off his arm and handed each of them one.

Nicole's eyes widened as she shook hers out. "Wow, I sure hope I can fit in this."

Christian and Darius unfolded theirs and stared at the skirtlike loincloths they found themselves holding. They looked at each other, but neither said anything till Kazuo had let them go with a reminder to report to the hotel by four-thirty. Then Darius scowled. "He can't be serious, man. We really gotta wear these things?"

Christian examined his doubtfully. "I have to agree with you there."

Nicole giggled. "Oh, come on, you two can't really be self-conscious about this. I can tell you've both got the physique to pull it off." She ruefully gazed at the sarong-like wrap that dangled from her fingers. "Wish I could say the same for me."

"What're you worried about? You'll be more covered than we will!" Darius griped, shaking his head. "Man, they could've told us about this before we applied for the job."

Christian peered at him and inquired curiously, "How desperate are you for a little ready cash, anyway?"

"Not this desperate," Darius said forcefully. "I don't care how hot it is, this just isn't my style. Maybe I'd better try someplace else."

Nicole eyed him with a taunting look that Christian could see was primarily good-natured, the teasing sort of expression that came with friendship. "Welching out on your first civilian job already, are you, Langford? If I didn't know better, I'd say you were chicken. Come to think of it, I don't know you all that well, so maybe you are."

Darius froze where he stood and then gave her a look that should have melted her into a puddle of slag right there on the spot. "I'll show you chicken, college girl." Then he looked at Christian and winked. "Who knows, man, maybe our sleek physiques might snag us a couple of beauteous native girls who can give us our green cards to this place."

Reluctantly Christian joined in Darius' chuckles, his merriment a little strained. The only woman here he was interested in was Leslie, and until this fantasy ended, she was off-limits. He cleared his throat and changed the subject. "Do you have any idea how to put one of these things on?"

That stopped Darius again, and he looked slowly up at Christian, his dark eyes wide with realization. "Hell no, man. Never thought of that."

Nicole burst out laughing. "You'll have to get somebody to show you!"

"I hope we can wear briefs under these things," Christian grumbled, and Darius nodded emphatic agreement while Nicole laughed even harder. Christian turned his back on Nicole and contemplated the evening ahead, wishing uselessly that he'd had the good sense to be grateful for the hand he'd been dealt at birth.

‡ ‡ ‡

Christian was positive his entire body was redder than the famous Fantasy Island sunsets. Never in his life had he worn so little clothing in public. His entire torso from the waist up was bare, and the "skirt" of his loincloth reached only halfway to his knees. He was barefoot atop that—keeping up the appearance of the shoeless, loosely clad Polynesian native. No one in Lilla Jordsö who wasn't closely related to him had ever seen him even shirtless. He felt only a little better when he came upon Darius, standing in the path just beyond sight of those in the clearing, clad in his loincloth and staring apprehensively at the milling crowd. He apparently heard Christian come up behind him, for he turned around and asked plaintively, "Do I really have to go in there, man?"

Christian shrugged resignedly. "We agreed to do this. We might as well go ahead and get it over with. Although to tell you the truth, I'm sure I'll be the laughingstock of this entire luau. I don't look the slightest bit Polynesian."

Darius scowled at him. "Neither do I, you know. This wasn't my idea of a great job in paradise. Thought it was, till the chef said we had to wear these damn things."

Christian studied him, smiled ever so slightly and then said, "Shall we toss a coin to see who goes in there first?"

Darius muttered a swear word. "Haven't got one. There aren't any pockets in this stupid thing." Christian burst out laughing, and Darius finally cracked a grin. "Oh, all right, okay. Might as well do it together. You ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Christian murmured, and the two men exchanged one last look and stepped into the clearing side by side. No one seemed to take much notice of them, to their surprise and cautious relief, so they sidled over to the buffet, collected their trays and a pair of tongs apiece, and swiftly filled the trays with fruit and other little delicacies.

Nicole appeared then, easily hefting a tray of small glasses full of decoctions in every color of the rainbow. She let out a wolf whistle. "I knew you guys'd look yummy in those! You won't be able to keep the women off you."

Darius paused to point his tongs at her. "Look, college girl, I'm doin' this because I need a few bucks for bus and ferry tickets, and I'm not putting up with you and your sassy remarks. You got me? And something tells me Christian here'll deck you one, female or not, if you let one more wisecrack pass those smart lips of yours."

Nicole rolled her eyes. "Is that how your mother raised you to accept compliments?"

"That's your idea of a compliment? Buzz off, woman," Darius warned, threatening to throw a coconut hull at her. Nicole snickered, winked and vanished into the crowd.

As Darius and Christian began to circulate, they both got more than a few admiring looks from women both single and married. They compared notes the first time they met in their travels, and discovered to their surprise that it wasn't really so bad after all. After their first bout of self-consciousness, they started to enjoy themselves. Darius, Christian noticed, began to respond to some of the looks he was getting; but he couldn't bring himself to follow suit. It wasn't long before he began to repeatedly catch himself trying to locate Leslie in the throngs of people. Was it his imagination, or was the luau crowd thicker than usual this evening? He kept his professional royal smile plastered to his face and managed to pay at least half his attention to the people he was serving food to, but over and over again his eyes kept straying away, scanning heads, searching for Leslie.

"You didn't," said a familiar voice behind him suddenly, tinged with astonished amusement. He groaned silently, closed his eyes and counted to five in _jordiska_, and turned to face Roarke, who was staring at him. "No, it seems you did. Congratulations, Christian."

"For what? Baring most of my body in public?" Christian retorted. "Mr. Roarke, I'll have you know, I've never shown this much of myself to anyone outside my immediate family. And no, it has nothing to do with overblown modesty or royal protocol. Most of the year it's just too damned cold in Lilla Jordsö to dress this lightly."

Roarke laughed. "It took courage for you to take this step," he said encouragingly, "and you're doing a fine job. In fact, Chef Miyamoto himself stopped me long enough to tell me he was glad Leslie had sent you his way, that you're doing a commendable job."

"Ach," Christian grunted scornfully, "it doesn't take much effort. Just walk around balancing a tray and let people pick whatever they want off it. As long as no one steps on my feet, I should survive the evening essentially unscathed. Speaking of Leslie, is she here this evening?"

"She is likely to come later on, when there aren't as many people," Roarke said. "But it seems to me an exercise in futility. Why would you be so eager to see her when you're well aware she has no idea who you really are?"

Christian hesitated before replying, wondering what his father-in-law would think if he knew Christian's true hopes. After a moment the prince said slowly, "I've been thinking about it, and I feel much as I did the first time I met you and Leslie, when she and I were getting to know each other and becoming friends, and falling in love. Perhaps…perhaps I was hoping that history would repeat itself."

"That you would find the magic again?" Roarke prompted gently.

Christian nodded. "Perhaps it's too much to hope for, especially in light of that scolding you gave me earlier today. But I can't help myself."

Roarke smiled a little with understanding. "Don't be discouraged if she decides not to come," he advised. "Surely you can get along for one weekend without her."

Christian regarded him, then shook his head a little, as if in pity. "How long has it been since you were in love?" he asked.

"Not as long as you think, my dear Christian," Roarke told him, with just the slightest hint of an old ache in his voice. But he smiled again, just that little bit, enough to warm his dark eyes. "If I can manage, surely you can as well." He patted Christian's bare shoulder. "Good luck." With that, he left.

"Didn't know you knew Mr. Roarke," remarked Darius, pulling up alongside him then. "Guess you got connections."

"Ah, he was only checking to see how I was doing," said Christian, trying to sound dismissive. "So what of you, then? Has any one woman caught your interest yet, or are you still sampling all of them?"

Darius grinned. "There's a whole island full of pretty ladies to choose from," he said with relish, "and one way or another I'm gonna check 'em all out before I even think about making any choices. I got a few finalists, though." He winked, and Christian laughed again before resuming his circuits through knots of people. It seemed he and Darius could have been friends, if they had known each other in his real life. He thought about asking Roarke a question to that end, then sighed quietly and tucked the idea away. He had enough to worry about just getting himself through the weekend.

§ § § -- March 5, 2006

Christian woke by slow degrees, trying to cling to a dream in which he and Leslie were about to make love on the beach. When sleep finally, inevitably, deserted him for good, he realized he was too aroused to get up without discomfort, and lay there for a few minutes thinking with some dread of the day ahead of him. He supposed he could take the coward's way out and hole up in the bungalow all day long, but sooner or later Roarke would come looking for him and read him another riot act. All he needed was to be lectured again, like a recalcitrant child.

He hadn't seen Leslie at the luau at all the previous evening, which had mildly depressed him and most likely led to the dream from which he'd just awakened. He had no idea whether it had been her independent choice not to come, or if Roarke had for some reason told her he was there and she'd decided to avoid the luau due to that, or if he simply had managed to miss catching sight of her even though she'd been there. When he grew aware that these three theories were merely chasing each other around his brain, he grunted a disgusted curse at himself and got out of bed to take a shower.

He'd been up late the previous night till past one in the morning, helping to put away the remaining food and washing all the trays, plates and cutlery; fortunately he and Darius had been allowed to put their street clothes back on before they pitched in with this, making both of them feel much better. Darius had been in a much better mood than he'd started out with, cracking jokes throughout the cleanup detail and making everyone laugh so that the whole operation was much more fun. Kazuo had praised both of them, paid them in cash and sent them on their way with the hope that they'd come back for future luaus. Christian had merely smiled; Darius had actually agreed to consider it.

Now that he had enough money to get a decent breakfast, Christian headed for the hotel and indulged in the nearest thing they had available to the sort of breakfast he had grown up with, which was surprisingly close—open-faced sandwiches, a bowl of hot cereal, and toast accompanied with lingonberry jam imported from Scandinavia. Thus fortified, he settled back and drank a second cup of coffee at leisure, watching the waiters come and go and trying for the first time ever to picture himself doing such a job. Waiting tables, he knew, was the sort of job most folks took for granted, unless they were doing it for a living. It was a cliché, a job considered decidedly menial, something aspiring actors did while they were waiting for their big break, or harried single mothers did in a desperate attempt to keep their kids in clothing and food and under a roof. At one point he recognized Nicole Dalton and smiled when she caught his eye and veered over to his table. "Hi, Christian," she greeted him cheerfully, shoving her order pad into a pocket.

"Good morning," he responded, still ill at ease with such informality. "I see you've taken up a new profession."

"Yeah." Nicole grinned and rested a hand on the back of a chair, then leaned her weight on it. "Paradise or not, I gotta work so I can earn enough money to get to the next place on my list."

"Which is where?" asked Christian with interest.

"Ultimately New Zealand, but I'm probably gonna have to either do the old hop-skip-and-jump across Oceania, or try my luck aboard a freighter going that way. Either way it'll be slow going, but what the heck, I still have my trusty camera and backpack. As long as I can earn money for passage and film, I figure the rest'll take care of itself. And I'll have a terrific scrapbook to show my kids and grandkids someday." She grinned again. "I can't wait. If I get lucky, I might get there before summer ends and I can have some decent weather to get a look around before their winter sets in. It'll be my first trip below the equator. Probably my last, too, so I plan to make it good."

"You're very fortunate," Christian noted.

"I'm making my own luck," Nicole said firmly. "I wanted to travel, so I dreamed up the best way to do that that would fit my budget and my plans and my dreams. I've hardly even gotten started. I still have to get to Australia, and Japan, and India, and on through to Europe. If I'm really lucky I'm going to shoot for South Africa too and try to see a couple other places on that continent. Yeah, I definitely want to see the world."

Christian chuckled, remembering himself at that age. He too had wanted to see the world, and hadn't gotten outside Europe till a trip he'd taken to the United States with Carl Johan, Amalia and his parents. Of course, only a few years later, he was sick beyond death of traveling, but maybe that had had something to do with the capacity in which he'd done that traveling. He had never been just a tourist, not till he'd come here, met Leslie and gone sightseeing with her around the island. That old envy of the common, ordinary man reared its head all over again, and he regarded Nicole thoughtfully. "I wish you luck. It must be nice to simply choose your destination, and the means of getting there, and the places you want to see while you're there. No business, just pleasure."

"Heck no, there's plenty of business. You kidding me? Sure, I can get where I want to go, but I have to work my way there. My parents are paying for my college tuition, but that's it. They told me anything else I wanted was my responsibility. I've been working since I finished high school. Never would've gotten anything but the absolute bare-bones necessities otherwise, you know? My parents aren't misers, but we're not rich. We're solid middle-class working-man types. Some one of these days I'm gonna pay them back. I mean, they've raised me and my brothers and sisters on practically a shoestring, and I'm going to make sure they get to take it easy when they finally retire." Nicole straightened and glanced around the dining room, then smiled. "Sorry to cut and run, but I'd better get back to work so I can earn my pay."

"That's all right," Christian said, still processing her words. "Thanks for stopping by to talk with me."

"Thanks for hearing me out," Nicole said. "And hey, Christian, whatever you do, good luck, huh?" She tossed a quick wave at him and flitted off.

Christian tipped back the last of his coffee, then arose, left a tip on the table and settled the bill at the door. It was pretty clear that Nicole had a long-term goal and was making steady headway toward achieving that goal. She wasn't someone he needed to worry about. His thoughts turned to Darius; what was he doing this morning? It surprised Christian to realize he was truly concerned for the former military man. He hadn't known him even a full day, and already he was hoping to extend—perhaps to keep—his newfound friendship with him. If and when he saw Roarke again, he planned to mention it.

Strolling slowly along the Ring Road in the general direction of town, he heard the sound of a jeep coming up behind him and automatically moved to the side of the road to let it pass. Instead it slowed and stopped beside him. "Mr. Enstad, was it?" asked Leslie.

He stared at her, the yearning leaping to life within him. "Yes," he said, feeling oddly prickly for no good reason at all. "Miss Hamilton, I think it was?"

She tipped her head curiously at him. "You can call me Leslie if you want," she offered.

_How magnanimous,_ Christian thought before squelching himself. She didn't know; after all, assistant or not, Roarke had seen to it that she was just as affected by this damned fantasy of his as the entire rest of the island. "Thank you," he said without using her name. "What made you stop to speak to me?"

"Just wanted to be sure you're doing all right," said Leslie. "Father told me last night that he saw you at the luau and you were doing a really great job."

"Weren't you there?" he asked, his heart sinking.

She smiled. "Unfortunately I had a lot of stuff to do. I'd have gone otherwise. I got word back that you looked pretty good in that loincloth."

Her remark, on the heels of yesterday's meeting in which she had been carefully and pointedly impersonal, made him blink at her in disbelief. "Oh?"

She chuckled. "I have to admit I'm sorry I missed it. Anyway, wherever you're going, I can give you a lift if you want. I have to get down to the other end of the island and make sure one of our guests survived the highlights of his fantasy last night."

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask about said fantasy, but he knew Leslie wouldn't tell him; according to Roarke's rules, she didn't discuss guests' fantasies with anyone outside her family or their circle of close friends. For this weekend at least, he was no longer in that category. So he said only, "I hope it went well for him, then. I really didn't have a destination in mind, unless you can tell me where I could find Darius Langford."

Leslie peered at him blankly. "Darius Langford?"

Christian nodded. "He was another of the temporary workers at the luau last night. I thought I'd see how he's doing."

Leslie considered it a moment. "Well, I don't know about that, but if you're willing to tell me about him, I could help you find him. Hop in."

When it came right down to it, Christian could no more resist this chance to spend time with her than he could have turned his back on a computer in need of repair. He finally smiled back at her and agreed, climbing into the passenger seat beside her. She sent the jeep ahead, glancing at him. "So…Darius Langford?"

Christian recounted what Darius had said yesterday about his discharge from the Air Force and his decision to seek out employment on Fantasy Island instead of returning home to New York. "He told us he's from Buffalo, where of course they receive an inordinate amount of snow in the winter, and he'd prefer to avoid that if he can."

Leslie laughed. "I guess I can understand that to some extent. Well, if he's staying here on the island, chances are he's got a room at the hotel. If he was discharged just a few days ago, though, it's possible he still goes back and forth between here and Coral Island, to figure out what to do with his things while he moves out of base housing."

Christian stared at her in surprise. "He'd have to do that?"

"Of course," said Leslie, glancing oddly at him. "You didn't know?"

"No," he admitted reluctantly, realizing he was learning more about the common, ordinary man than he'd ever dreamed he would.

"My gosh, either you were really sheltered back in Lilla Jordsö, or else they don't have any military there," she commented lightly. "Yeah, I've heard that the transition from military to civilian life can be a dicey process. Some have no problem at all, others have a really hard time. Listen, if you really want to track down this guy, your best bet at the moment would probably be to start with the ferry between here and Coral Island. I don't know if he's going to make a success out of replanting his life here, though. Unless he has a truly unique situation, it's a pretty good bet he'll ultimately have to go back to Buffalo. My father has very strict and difficult immigration rules in place. If your friend can find a job here, he'll have a foot in the door at least, but that doesn't guarantee anything."

Christian only made a noise, well aware of Roarke's immigration rules, since he himself had been subject to them. "Of course, if he married an islander, that would raise his chances of getting in," he said, mostly as a reminder to himself.

"Yeah…" Leslie paused and eyed him sidewise. "You think he's planning to do that?"

Christian laughed. "To tell you the truth, I don't know. He was certainly ogling the girls last evening, but no more than they ogled him." Leslie laughed too, and he relaxed; it felt almost like their usual, everyday married-couple banter. "I just thought I'd catch up with him and find out what his plans are, that's really all." He had the germ of an idea in his mind, but it was contingent on whether Darius Langford was only part of this fantasy, and he didn't want to give it voice till he knew.

She sped up once they were out of town, but a few miles down the road they passed the island shuttle bus, and Christian scanned it as best he could. "See him?" Leslie asked.

"No, I couldn't tell," Christian admitted. He shrugged and settled back in his seat. "I suppose I'll see him in town later."

Leslie slowed and, with a few swift gear-shifts, turned the jeep around right there in the road. "Look, why don't I go ahead and drop you off in town, then. I'm sure you don't want to hang around with me while I'm working."

Christian looked at her askance. That statement could mean almost anything. Was it perhaps a veiled invitation to hang out with her when she wasn't working? Was it just a casual dismissal, spoken without thinking? He decided he was better off not questioning it; he didn't think he could handle a repeat of Leslie's I'm-not-interested act. All he said in the end was, "Thank you, and I'm sorry to put you out of your way."

"Hey, we're here for our guests," said Leslie. "That's the whole reason for this resort's existence. When you see your friend, tell him I wish him good luck."

"I will," he agreed, and slipped out of the jeep when she stopped at the edge of town. "Thanks again, Miss Hamilton."

She peered at him, frozen in the act of preparing to turn the jeep back around. "You don't have to be so formal," she said.

He sighed quietly and finally gave up, laying it on the line. "Forgive me, but I don't want another misunderstanding like yesterday's." She blinked and bit her lip, and he tried to smile, softening his voice but still hearing the note of hurt in it. "You made it fairly clear that you wanted space between us, despite my interest. Perhaps it's better we leave things as they stand. I expect Mr. Roarke would agree wholeheartedly. Anyway, thank you again for the ride, and I hope you have a good day."

"You too," she murmured, and he smiled and started toward the square. But it took all he had not to look back even once, and he couldn't keep from listening for the roar of the engine—which didn't come for several moments, till he'd gotten halfway across the western side of the square. Only when the sound began to fade away did he finally look over his shoulder and wish Roarke hadn't felt the need to split him and Leslie up for the weekend.


	5. Chapter 5

§ § § -- March 5, 2006

He was still gazing after the disappearing jeep when someone tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around in surprise to find Darius standing there grinning at him. "Hey, Christian, buddy! Looks like you survived the luau."

"Seems you did too," remarked Christian, chuckling. "How about a cup of coffee? The café does a good job with it."

"I had some with my breakfast, but thanks for the offer. Yeah, I guess the damn thing wasn't as bad as I thought. Maybe if I can get a permanent position with the hotel, I can start looking into moving here." Darius jammed his hands into his pockets and strolled alongside Christian as they wandered aimlessly toward the grassy middle of the square. "Do you mind telling me again what the chances are of my immigrating here?"

"I'm told it's quite difficult," Christian said. "Mr. Roarke's extremely strict when it comes to allowing people to move here permanently. I hear it helps if you have a job here, but other than marrying an islander, you'd have to be in a unique position to ask for citizenship or even asylum. Mr. Roarke keeps this place as a sort of haven for endangered species, and that includes human beings."

Darius frowned, confused. "Humans aren't an endangered species. Hell, we're the ones doing the endangering."

"Truer words were never spoken," Christian agreed, and they smiled ruefully at each other. "But what I mean by that is that…well, let me try to provide an example. You'd have to be, say, a member of a vanishing tribe of people, or you'd have to be fluent in a dead or dying language, or you'd need to be…oh, I don't know, superhuman, for lack of a better word. You can see the difficulty."

"Superhuman?" Darius repeated.

Christian had been afraid he'd fixate on that. "Presumably, to have powers in the vein of Mr. Roarke's," he said. "Not that most of the world believes in that sort of thing anymore, but if Mr. Roarke has them, why should he be the only one?"

"Huh, I guess," Darius murmured, looking doubtful, but letting it drop. "So I guess it means I'd need to speak something nobody's ever heard of, or maybe some old language that nobody's spoken in about a thousand years?"

"That's pretty much the size of it, yes. Do you?"

"Don't know a thing about languages. That was never my strong suit. And I'm not exactly the last of the Mohicans or anything like that. I guess that kills my chances of getting Mr. Roarke's approval."

"Maybe you have some unique talent that would interest him. Maybe you play an instrument that no one's even built in hundreds of years, or you've been developing a viable cure for the common cold and you're afraid someone's going to steal it from you unless you have protection here."

"Does it count if my kid is a child prodigy, or he's being abused by my ex-wife? I mean, what if it wasn't me, but somebody in my family?"

"Do you _have_ a child prodigy and an ex-wife? I've heard of cases where people were allowed in with their families who wouldn't have had a chance on their own, just because one member has some qualifying characteristic. But listen, if you're just a normal, ordinary human being, then either you'd better find a likely-looking native girl and propose to her in a hurry, or resign yourself to being buried in the blizzards of Buffalo."

"Aw, hell, man…" Darius sighed. "Well, no, I haven't got either a child prodigy or an ex-wife, it was just an example off the top of my head. Say…suppose I learned how to play the dulcimer? Nobody's ever heard of that, right?"

"That might do the trick," Christian conceded, laughing. "I've heard of the dulcimer, but I've never heard one played or ever seen one, even pictures of them. How did you know about it?"

"My sister read about it in some historical romance novel once when she was a teenager, and talked about it for months after that. Guess it kind of stuck in my head. Well, okay, if that won't do it, how about if I bring back the last example of some rare plant?"

They continued brainstorming for quite a while, eventually going to the café after all and doing it over lunch. Finally, as they were finishing dessert, they were forced to concede defeat. Darius let out a heavy sigh and rested his chin in his hand. "I guess it's just not my destiny to live here," he remarked wistfully.

Christian, whose idea had been germinating all morning, could no longer hold it back. "Look," he said slowly, "I may have an idea. You'll…you'll have to give me time to see if it will work, but…if you'll meet me tomorrow in front of Fantasy Candies, I'll know by then if I can do it. What do you say?"

Darius peered at him with renewed hope. "What's the idea?"

"I might know of a job for you. But as I said, you'll have to give me time." It was a test; Christian had been telling himself for some little time now that if in fact Darius Langford was more than just an incidental role in his fantasy, then by tomorrow when they met, the candy shop would be Enstad Computer Services again and he could offer his friend a job. He had a receptionist in every branch but this one, and he'd begun to think lately that it was time he went ahead and hired one here. He liked Darius, who seemed to be a friendly sort and good with people; he thought Darius would do well in the job.

"Okay, I can do that. I'll find some kind of temporary work around here for today and then I'll meet you tomorrow. What time?"

Christian almost looked at his watch before remembering that he'd been advised to leave his Rolex at home for the weekend. He considered it for a moment or two, then said, "How about ten o'clock?"

"Sold," said Darius and reached across the table to shake hands. "You're cool, man."

"Don't thank me yet," Christian warned him. "It may not work out. I promise to do my best, but I need to…call in a few favors." _You'd better be listening, Mr. Roarke._

"Hell, I don't care, I'll take what I can get. Hey, you take it easy, man, huh? I gotta get going and see what's out there." Darius left some money on the table and arose. "See ya tomorrow."

"Take care," said Christian and watched him hurry out before getting to his own feet. He scooped up Darius' cash and dug into his pocket for his wallet, stepping out of the booth as he did so and accidentally bumping into someone. He looked up and exclaimed, "I'm very sorry. Please forgive me."

"Why don'tcha watch where you're goin'?" demanded the beefy, florid-faced man in a loud Hawaiian shirt and cutoffs with bleached threads dangling from the hems. "Geez, a guy can't move around here without some two-bit idiot colliding with him."

"I said I was sorry," Christian said, scowling at him. "I suppose an apology just isn't good enough anymore."

The man shoved a finger into his face, making him shy away. "Don't gimme that. I know what happens in these places—crooks trying to distract you while they're picking your pocket. Stay away from me, or I'll sic the cops on you." He made his way out of the café, taking several opportunities to glare at Christian on the way.

"Speaking of idiots…" Christian muttered to himself in _jordiska_ and wormed his way to the cash register to pay for his and Darius' meals. He couldn't help thinking that wouldn't have happened if that fool had recognized him, and suddenly began to understand a little bit what Roarke had meant when he'd said the life of the common man was fraught with its own perils. Darius' job problems, his brush with the suspicious tourist…he began to have a feeling he'd been just a little too lucky this weekend, and wondered what the rest of the day would bring.

‡ ‡ ‡

By mid-afternoon he was so bored that he was on his way to the swimming pool, hoping to burn off some of his restlessness in the water. Having received so much attention at the luau the previous evening made him slightly nervous about going there in only swim trunks, but no one paid him any attention at all, except for the occasional female wolf whistle. The noises made him smile but he didn't respond otherwise; he still had trouble trying not to think of Leslie, or the concerted effort he'd made to distance himself from her for the day. He'd started to regret it, but he didn't expect to see her till such time as Roarke deemed it convenient to call a halt to his fantasy.

At the pool he was surprised to find there weren't that many people there. It gave him the opportunity to slip into the sun-warmed water and get used to it before sucking in a breath and ducking under long enough to soak his hair. He had few opportunities to swim, but it had been a requirement of his physical-education classes during his last four years in school in Lilla Jordsö and he still had the skill. He pushed off from the wall and struck out across the pool, steadily eating away the distance, doing a clumsy somersault under the surface to get himself going the other way. He would never qualify for the Olympics, but that didn't bother him. He swam till his arms had begun to ache, which to his chagrin happened after only four and a half laps, and stopped in the middle of the pool to tread water and let his muscles rest.

"Wow, hi there, handsome," said a lilting female voice nearby, and he turned to stare at a woman who looked like something off a Paris catwalk. _Or maybe she's the living incarnation of someone's Barbie-doll fantasy,_ he thought rather uncharitably, though for some reason he couldn't keep from staring at her face. She was not Leslie, not by far. Leslie had a gentle attractiveness that most would call pretty only when she had been professionally coifed and made up, the very sort of artless but sweet face that had always intrigued him from his teen years and had utterly captivated him when he'd first met her. This woman was well beyond that, so beautiful and physically flawless that he was instantly put off.

But Christian tended to forget his own classically handsome features, which even if he hadn't been royalty would have drawn women in droves. Sometimes he hated what he saw in the mirror, and now he found reason to dislike it that much more when the woman lazily stroked through the water toward him. She wore a bikini that barely met the definition of clothing, exposing so much of her body to public view that he thought she should be arrested for intent to indecently expose herself. Only the parts that absolutely had to be covered were covered; there was nothing left to the imagination. He swallowed his distaste and tried to be polite. "Hello," he said guardedly.

She flashed a brilliant, perfect smile at him (_who capped her teeth?_ he wondered) and came to a halt so close to him that he maneuvered himself back a couple of inches, instinctively repulsed by her proximity. "My name's Felicia, what's yours?"

"Christian," he said reluctantly.

"Hi there, Christian," Felicia purred. _Felicia, feline,_ he thought without warning, and nodded once, very wary. "Where're you from?"

"Lilla Jordsö," he said. He'd begun to tire of answering the question, and was stunned to realize he wished everyone knew him just so he wouldn't have to keep telling them this.

"My my, they sure grow them delicious-looking in Lilla Jordsö," Felicia commented, mangling the pronunciation but at least refraining from using the normal English translation of his country's name. "Maybe I should try visiting there sometime, if you're a typical citizen. Hey, what do you say we get together, huh? I'm staying at the B&B—I've got a nice private room in the wing. I bet we'd really click."

Never in all his life had Christian been openly propositioned for a purely sexual encounter, and he was astonished. "What?" was all he could think to say.

Felicia laughed low. "Are you telling me nobody else's laid claim on you yet, gorgeous? Geez, they don't have a clue what they're missing. Where've you been hiding all this time, anyway?" She had been edging closer to him as she spoke, and before he realized her intentions, she'd twined her arms around his neck and was suddenly kissing him.

Frozen by complete amazement, Christian let it happen for about five seconds before his senses flooded back and he twisted aside, forgetting to take a breath before he dove under and coming up spluttering a few yards away. Felicia was squawking, he realized. "You got my hair wet!" she shrieked, outraged.

"If you didn't want to get your hair wet, then what the hell are you doing in the pool?" he couldn't resist yelling back in annoyance, and to his surprise there was some laughter and applause from the onlookers sitting around the pool. He groaned to himself and dove back underwater once more, only to bump into someone else and lose his breath in one startled yelp. The air bubble boiled up between his face and that of another inhumanly beautiful young woman; he recoiled and surfaced.

The second woman followed him up. "Don't be so scared," she laughed. "Hi, I'm Cassandra, what's your name?"

He told her, and she grinned. "Nice name for a nice-looking guy. Well, if you're not interested in sweet Felicia over there, you and I could always get together."

Flustered, he tried to backpedal away. "Look…I'm really only here to work off some energy. I'm not looking for…"

"That's when you find someone—when you're not looking for them," Cassandra said cheerfully. "Don't pay any attention to Felicia. She's been here all weekend trolling for guys. The word _subtle_ is a foreign term to her." His words seemed to sink in then. "Just to work off some energy? You're kidding. Some folks told me most lovers on this island first meet right here at the pool. It's no wonder, you know. It's probably the only place where they come to show off their bodies instead of swim, like at the beaches."

"Oh?" he murmured, wondering if Roarke and Leslie knew about this.

Cassandra shrugged. "It's where the rich and beautiful meet," she said and smiled. "What else would you be doing here but looking for another rich and beautiful person?"

"Swimming, perhaps?" Christian offered a trace sarcastically.

Cassandra peered oddly at him and shook her head a little. "Get up on the wrong side of the bed, did you?" she asked. Then a slow smile began to spread over her face. "Maybe if you'd shared it with someone, you'd be in a better mood. Looking for volunteers?"

"No," Christian barked, alarmed, and lunged for the nearest ladder to get out of the pool. Cassandra followed him out at some leisure, without his knowledge, till she caught up with him and startled him by slipping her hand firmly into his. Christian dropped his towel, flustered anew, and when he bent over to pick it up, he felt her hand slide along his backside. _"Herregud,"_ he blurted without thinking.

"Look, guys do it to us all the time, so why shouldn't we do it back?" Cassandra said, posing the question as a reasonable one, and Christian supposed it was, if taken in a much different context. "Anyway, I sure wouldn't object if you happened to do it to me. Where do you come from, anyway? You have this accent—just a little one, but I can hear it, and you have to know it really turns me on. Wherever you come from, if all the guys are as hot-looking as you, then I'm gonna book my next trip there."

"You don't understand. I'm not looking for any attachments," Christian protested at last, his brain having slowly regained some function as he stood there listening to her carrying on. "All I'm doing here is—" He never got to finish, for just like Felicia, Cassandra slid an arm around his neck, pulled him down to meet her, and kissed him.

Christian tried to pull back, but Cassandra was too quick for him and tightened her hold on him. He started to struggle, but she held control until there was a sudden exclamation in a familiar voice not far away. "Hey, for Pete's sake, get a room!"

Only then did Cassandra let go, and Christian stumbled backwards, trying to put some respectable distance between them. "Mind your own business," Cassandra retorted.

"I would if you weren't broadcasting your intentions all over the pool," said Myeko Okada, whose face wore its usual cheerful, open expression, as if she were teasing Cassandra. "If you two want to get it on, do it somewhere in private, or else I'll really have something juicy to write up in my newspaper column."

"Ach, fate help me, please don't," Christian pleaded miserably.

Myeko looked at him in surprise. "Huh? Oh, come on, I was just kidding. Hey, you look like you're getting sunburned, you'd better go put on some lotion." Christian groaned quietly, imagining his whole body must be red again. "And while you're at it, you might want to think about setting some limits on your girlfriend there."

"She's not my girlfriend," Christian shot back instantly, wanting to make this as clear as possible. "I know her name and that's all. She attacked me."

"I didn't attack you!" Cassandra protested angrily. "You were perfectly willing—"

"No, I was not," Christian broke in, his voice stony. "Forgive me, but I have no interest in…what's the phrase?...in 'shacking up' with a girl whose last name I don't even know. That's not my style and I don't intend to make it so. No wonder I never enjoyed running with the fast crowd. Living for the moment is for young fools who think they'll be indestructible forever. How I wish I'd never insisted on this stupid fantasy…" He glanced around the pool, noticed he'd garnered interest from almost everyone there, and shook his head. "I'm leaving. Excuse me." Before anyone could stop him, he grabbed his towel and departed as fast as he could walk.

_This damned fantasy!_ he thought, steaming. _If I hadn't given up my identity for the weekend, neither of those forward women would have dared lay a hand on me. Damn it, I'm a prince! Who do they think they are to plaster themselves all over me and force themselves on me? And suppose Leslie had come in?_ And then he remembered: he wasn't a prince just now, he was only an ordinary man; it wouldn't have mattered. Myeko hadn't recognized him, or she'd have gone ballistic at seeing Cassandra kissing him. Leslie might have looked at him askance, but there wouldn't have been a word of protest from her. He sighed, depressed again, and felt more lost than ever as he trudged dispiritedly along a path back to his bungalow. Maybe he should have taken the impulse he'd had this morning to hole up there all day after all.

Halfway there he changed his mind and decided to strike out for the beach where he tended to run off his frustrations. Ideally it would be deserted, but he knew better than to expect that in the daytime on a weekend. Still, he detoured to his bungalow long enough to put on shorts, a shirt and sandals before heading to the beach. It was still secluded enough to be sparsely populated, which was to his great relief. He shucked the shirt and sandals and began to run, paying no attention to anything but the sound of his feet slapping along the wet sand at the waterline, sometimes seeing his own faint and fading footprints being washed away on the return trips.

It was better than swimming; it cleared his mind, filling it with the fatigue he always went for on these runs. Back and forth he went, lap after lap, his breathing becoming increasingly rapid and labored, his body covered with a sheen of sweat, his pace gradually slowing. Time ceased to have any meaning. He started to droop a little, but he kept pushing himself, his frustration having ballooned to previously unknown heights. _More, more,_ his mind insisted cruelly, even when his body screamed for relief. He slowed to a walk but still refused to stop moving, forcing tortured muscles to keep working. Back and forth…

"Christian…Christian, stop!" There was such a roaring in his ears he wasn't sure he hadn't hallucinated the voice. But he obeyed it anyway, and the moment he did, he collapsed to his knees, letting the incoming tide slosh across him, not caring about anything anymore. He'd had enough; he just wanted to escape into some manner of oblivion till he woke up in his own life again.


	6. Chapter 6

§ § § -- March 5, 2006

Someone dropped to the sand in front of him and he felt hands bracket his face, tilting his head back. "Open your eyes," that voice insisted.

It couldn't be. He slowly opened his eyes and found himself staring at Leslie, who knelt before him with a deeply worried, even frightened look on her face. "How long have you been here doing this?" she demanded.

He was so winded he couldn't even speak; he could only close his eyes again. He had no idea how long he'd been punishing his mind and body; it could be the middle of the night for all he knew. He couldn't muster up the energy even to wonder what Leslie was doing here in the first place. Did she still see him as that peculiar stranger? He let his head fall forward and his body go limp.

"Christian, are you trying to kill yourself?" Leslie cried, catching him as he began to tip slowly to one side. "Look at me!"

"What…does…it…matter?" he got out on raspy exhalations.

He heard her burst into tears. "Damn you anyway, Christian Carl Tobias Enstad," she sobbed. "I never should have given you this fantasy. Look what it's done…"

His eyes snapped open and he stared at her. "Leslie? My Rose?" he breathed, daring to hope for the first time. "You know me?"

She nodded hard, staring up at him through streaming eyes. "That gold-digger at the pool came over to complain about the way you treated her. She said you wished you'd never had this fantasy, so she figured it must be our fault and stood there for fifteen minutes arguing with Father about not getting what _she_ came here for. Some dumb fantasy of hers to find a rich guy, I guess, but anyway…Father looked odd and then he told me I'd better go and look for you. And when I saw you here on the beach, I knew you."

He was still panting but at least he could talk a little now. "You…remember…the whole…weekend?"

She nodded again. "Father said I had to have my memories of you temporarily erased, just like everybody else. I kept asking him if we really had to do it like that, and he kept telling me yes, we did. But all weekend I felt as if something wasn't exactly right…like there was something I was supposed to remember but just couldn't pin down. It was that hole in my memory where you should've been. Christian, I'm sorry." Her face contorted and she started to cry again. "I kept begging him…but he said you needed to figure out on your own how to handle being a nobody."

Christian stared at her, drinking her in. "Poor Leslie," he murmured, almost dreamily, taking the chance to thread his fingers through her hair and savor the fact that he had his wife back. "My darling…it's not your fault."

"I gave you the fantasy, my love," she wailed.

"I could have requested something else," he reminded her softly, relieved that his breath had settled into normal rhythms now. "It was a stupid impulse on my part to ask to be just a common, regular man. Mr. Roarke was hard on both of us, my Rose, but I can see now that he was right. It was exactly what I needed."

She rubbed at tears with the backs of her fingers. "I didn't need a weekend without you. I didn't like it even before it started. I wanted to be there for you—you were an extra fantasy this weekend anyway, and I figured Father could handle our usual guests."

He tipped his head at her and pointed out, "You seem to have forgotten that you're the one who told me I would have to go it alone, with no help from either you or Mr. Roarke. What about that?"

She smiled sheepishly and admitted, "Well, you didn't seem to be listening to Father's caveats, and you sounded like you were so sure you could handle it and it'd be a total cakewalk. It was that arrogant self-assurance that made me say that."

"I do have a way of coming across as insufferable sometimes, don't I?" he agreed with a soft laugh. "I'm afraid I was simply so fed up with the madness of my life at the moment that I wanted my break and I wanted it immediately."

"Yeah, you did," she agreed, and they chuckled and grasped each other's hands. He was so glad she knew him as her husband again that he felt himself trembling; or was that only his badly overworked muscles begging for relief? He didn't care; it was just too good to be back in his real life once more.

"So my fantasy is over, then?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yup. When you've got some strength back, we can go back to the main house and see the triplets."

"Ach, _herregud._ Whatever happened to them all weekend long?" he exclaimed. "If everyone merely lost their memories for a couple of days…"

"I don't know. Father handled it, but I don't expect him to tell me," she said with a wry little grin. "Father guards his secrets very carefully."

"Never explain anything to anybody, that must be his motto," said Christian and matched her ironic smile. "That's all right. As long as they're there when we get back, it doesn't matter. Ah, Leslie, my Rose, I can't tell you how desperately I missed you these two days. When I first realized you didn't know me, I was sure I'd have a heart attack."

"I thought you _were_ having one," Leslie admitted, wincing at the recollection of that encounter. "But you were a complete stranger to me, even though I still felt that hole in my memory. Father was just so thorough in his efforts that I didn't connect you at all to what felt like it was missing."

They gazed at each other, and then Christian leaned forward and kissed her deeply, simply because he could. He delighted in her ardent response, and they indulged themselves for several long, sweet minutes, till an incoming wave splashed across them and made them break apart with surprised exclamations and then laughter.

"I think I can move now," Christian said and slowly pushed himself to his feet while Leslie sprang to hers, waiting in case he needed any help.

"Why on earth did you do that to yourself?" she asked, watching him.

"I've never been so upset and frustrated before," he told her, amazed that he didn't hear his joints squeak as he moved. "I had to run it off, but it took much longer than usual, and I simply felt that it made no difference to anyone what happened to me, so I just kept pushing myself. Things just don't feel right without you, my Leslie Rose. I don't care what Mr. Roarke thinks; my life may have been good before I met you, but there was no purpose to it. I had to find another way to fill that need while you…had your amnesia."

Leslie laughed, wrapped an arm around his waist and sidled along next to him; he slid his arm around her and held her closely. "Well, now you're home," she said.

They passed several people along their way back to the car Leslie had driven over. The natives smiled and nodded, greeting them both by name; the guests invariably did double-takes, their faces filling with amazement as they recognized Christian for the prince he was. And Christian, for the first time in a very long time, welcomed it, smiled and nodded back, returned the greetings.

He glanced across the square as they drove back through it, and sure enough, there was the familiar sign over the storefront, ENSTAD COMPUTER SERVICES. He relaxed in the seat, letting the enervation of great relief claim his tired body. "You're right, my Rose," he said softly. "I'm home now."

‡ ‡ ‡

"Daddy! Daddy!" shouted three small voices as Christian and Leslie stepped into the study; Roarke was at the desk while the triplets had been playing with assorted toys on the floor, and watched now as the children abandoned their playthings and mauled their laughing father. Christian sank onto the loveseat, relieved to let his still-protesting leg muscles have another rest, and gathered his children into his embrace, ruffling their hair and squeezing each in turn. They crawled all over him, still squealing "Daddy!" and patting him everywhere they could stretch their little hands. Then Susanna got a fistful of his hair and blurted out, "Wet!" She and her brother and sister were now twenty-one months old, and their vocabularies had been growing slowly but steadily for the last few weeks.

"You're right, _lillan min,_ my hair is wet all right!" Christian agreed, grinning at her. "I went swimming, and then I went running."

"Wunny?" echoed Tobias, looking puzzled, and Christian nodded. Roarke and Leslie laughed, and that seemed to put the triplets back into motion; they clung to their father like three oversized barnacles, patting, poking and occasionally pinching him.

"Daddy wet, Mommy," Karina announced solemnly while Leslie sat down beside her husband. The little girl was fingering his upper arm.

"Daddy probably would love to have a nice long shower before supper," Leslie said, and Christian chuckled and nodded again.

"Where were you three all weekend?" he asked them, mostly rhetorically, though he knew Roarke would overhear. Despite his conversation with Leslie on the beach, he'd been wondering if there were some chance Roarke would explain after all.

But all Roarke told him was, "They were well cared for, Christian, and in good hands, you need not fear."

Leslie and Christian looked at each other and smiled resignedly at the same moment, and Christian realized that Leslie had no idea where their children had been that weekend either. He sighed and decided he was better off changing the subject. "Well, then, what are we having for supper this evening?"

"Gazpacho and crab-salad sandwiches for us," Leslie said, "and some ham and cut-up veggies for the kids. And Mariki and her staff spent the day making _jordsklockor_, so you can have a treat for dessert."

"Wonderful," said Christian. "Let me have that shower, and I'll be glad to join you."

A little more than half an hour later, they had begun their meal in earnest, and the conversation turned inevitably to a deconstruction of Christian's fantasy. "I should have asked you for a day with Mother, and let her and Leslie and the children meet each other," he said to Roarke. "Perhaps that would have been safer."

Roarke smiled. "It was no surprise that you requested the fantasy you did. You felt yourself in need of a break from the fame that had become especially pervasive in the wake of events in your home country, and it was only natural that you'd take the chance you had been given. Tell me, now, what you learned."

"I didn't know this was to be a life lesson," said Christian, and Leslie laughed.

"Most people's fantasies turn out to be life lessons," she said. "I think it's Father's way of teaching folks to be grateful for what they have and who they are. There've been a few exceptions, of course, but for the most part guests go away feeling glad they're alive, in their real-life circumstances, even with the problems they have."

"Indeed," said Roarke. "And have yours been put into the proper perspective?"

Christian considered. "Yes, I think so. I've said many times before that the histrionics of the press always die down eventually, and people find other things to obsess over. This may take some time to fade away; after all, it's a major shakeup for my family, and there'll be a great deal of sorting out to do as the fallout settles. But it's not going to dictate my entire life. Those who ask are a nuisance, yes—sometimes an overwhelming one. But it's quite strange, Mr. Roarke…I discovered this weekend that, for me at least, it's rather frightening to be just another nameless human being."

Roarke smiled, but Leslie stared at him in surprise. "Frightening! You've complained for years that you wanted to know what it was like to be nameless. What in the world made you come to that conclusion?"

Christian drew in a breath. "I'm accustomed to the life I was born into. All forty-seven of my years, I've had certain advantages and connections that I must admit I've taken for granted. Oh, yes, there were times I had to fight to achieve certain goals, but they weren't the sort of goals most commoners would have understood—the right to live my own life, have my own home, earn my own money. To be my own person instead of merely a tool, or possession, of the state." He shook his head. "I never truly understood what struggle is. I thought I was struggling when I started my business back in the late eighties, but the simple truth is that I was just too famous. People might have looked at my plans as an oddity for a prince who already had all the money he needed to live comfortably, but I was in a unique position even within my family. I had connections I never knew about simply because I was part of the royal family. Before I knew it, I had offers for all the equipment, work space and employees I would ever need. And I was used to having these advantages. When all that was taken away from me and I was truly a faceless human being, it terrified me." He looked at Roarke ruefully. "Perhaps my fantasy was less a success than it should have been. I knew, despite my frustration with things, that it would all come to an end soon. I didn't have time to learn to survive entirely on my own."

"Do you wish that opportunity?" Roarke inquired, in all innocence.

Christian recoiled. "No, thank you!" he exclaimed, and Leslie laughed. "I got enough of a taste of it just for the weekend. There might come a day when I take you up on that offer, when I forget again exactly how good my life truly is despite all the intrusions. But no, I'm quite happy with what I have now."

Roarke chuckled. "As I thought. When you first requested this fantasy, Christian, you reminded me of a particular poem by Emily Dickinson. I quote:

_I'm nobody! Who are you?__  
Are you nobody, too?  
__Then there's a pair of us—don't tell!  
They'll banish us, you know._

_How dreary to be somebody!  
__How public, like a frog__  
To tell your name the livelong day  
To an admiring bog!"_

Christian smiled wryly. "That would have been me, all right, and on many days it is. But just for now, I'm happy to be somebody. And when I stop being happy about it, I'll remind myself of this fantasy, and tell myself how good I really have it."

"Good," said Roarke with an approving smile. "Then your fantasy was very much worth the granting. Now, suppose we finish the meal."

§ § § -- March 6, 2006

"Where are you going, my love?" Leslie asked in surprise when Christian made a left turn, rather than a right, onto the Ring Road. "I thought we were going home."

"Oh, we will," he assured her, heading for town. "But…there's something I need to do first. It's all right, I don't think it will take very long."

She shrugged. "Okay. Of course, that'll just give everybody in town another chance to ask you what you really knew about Esbjörn's attempted murder."

Christian made a dismissive noise and waved a hand in the air as if shooing off a bothersome insect. "Sooner or later, my Rose, the truth will out. It always does. It's up to the individual whether to believe it, and the smart ones will."

"I like the new attitude," she said and then slanted a teasing look at him. "How long do you think it'll last?" He shot her a dirty look and they both laughed.

"Daddy," blurted Karina just then from the seat behind them. "Man."

Christian caught his daughter's eye in the rearview mirror and grinned. "What man?"

"Man," Karina said again and this time pointed. He chuckled, then looked in the direction she indicated and almost slammed on the brakes. She was right; there was a man standing in front of his office. A very familiar, and welcome, man.

He parked in front of the office and stepped out of the car, and Darius Langford stood up straight for a moment and stared at him, then presented him with a half-bow. "Prince Christian," he said.

Christian paused beside him, wondering what Darius recalled of the weekend. "Good morning," he said, after debating how to greet him. They'd become friends over the weekend, he'd thought. Had Darius' recollection of that been eliminated?

Then Darius straightened up and grinned at him. "You must've had a ball this past weekend, pretending to be somebody else," he remarked. "Just plain old Mr. Enstad, huh? You sure fooled me. Never had a clue who you really were."

Christian, delighted, burst into laughter. "Ah, Darius, my friend, if you only knew!" he chortled. "I'm glad you're here. About that job—if you're interested, I'd like you to be my receptionist. The pay is good and so are the benefits."

Darius looked amazed. "Receptionist? Thought that was a woman's job."

"Listen, if a woman can be a doctor or an astronaut, then a man can be a nurse or a receptionist," said Leslie from behind him, and he whipped around to see who had spoken and then grinned. She grinned back and added, "Nice to meet you."

"Darius Langford," he said, shaking hands with her. "Christian and I got to know each other over the weekend. Just got out of the Air Force and thought I'd see if something was open so I could settle here. I like this part of the world."

"So do we," said Leslie. "Hey, if I were you, I'd go for the job."

"In that case, sold," Darius said and beamed. "Thanks, Christian, you don't know what this means to me."

"I think I do," said Christian and smiled a little, then clapped him on the shoulder. "Welcome to Enstad Computer Services." He looked at Leslie and winked.

* * *

_A quick request: If you haven't seen the poll on my profile page, then please take the time to look at it and vote. I'd really appreciate it, thank you! And as ever, thanks to my reviewers and readers. (Would love to hear from the "silent" ones!)_


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